by Ben Shapiro
“Judging Islam based on the acts of Osama bin Laden would be like condemning all Christians for the acts of Timothy McVeigh,” asserts Professor Mark Berkson of Hamline College.39 This is deliberately misleading the students. McVeigh was an avowed atheist, while bin Laden is a devoutly religious Muslim.
“It was most unfortunate that our president declared war on terrorism, which is a military tactic,” says UC Santa Cruz Professor Alan Richards. “I would much prefer that he had declared war on fanaticism. That’s what killed people in New York and Washington. . . . Muslims have no monopoly on fanaticism. We have it in the United States, too.”40 Not in the same numbers. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people, and anti-abortion bombers have killed six people since 1993.41 That’s not much in comparison to the huge numbers of Americans killed around the world by Islamic terrorists. Muslim terrorists killed more than seventeen times as many Americans on September 11 alone, and they’re clearly planning more murder and mayhem.
“Just as most [Americans] would regard bombers of abortion clinics to be outside the pale of Christianity, so the actions of these terrorists should not be accepted as representing Islam in any way,” nods Professor Alan Godlas of the University of Georgia.42 Except that a large percentage of Muslims do not see suicide bombings as contrary to Islam.
Professor Diana Eck of Harvard also goes the route of moral relativism. “My sense is that in every religious tradition, we have fanatics,” she states. “We have people who are willing to kill and destroy for their vision of justice and their vision of truth.”43 Then why don’t Jews and Christians blow themselves up along with innocent civilians in the name of their religion, Professor?
“Islam did not cause the events of September 11. Islam is not inherently violent, and the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people who had nothing to do with this,” maintains Professor Paul Powers, lecturing at Lewis and Clark College.44
Professor David F. Forte of Cleveland State University characterizes the attacks as a perversion of Islam, and then tries to lump together Muslims and the West as dual victims of bin Laden. “[Osama bin Laden’s] war is as much against Islam as it is against the West,” Forte writes. “[I]n its modern form, bin Laden’s kind of extremism has much more in common with Stalin, Hitler, and Mao than it does with Islamic tradition. Like those state terrorists, bin Laden is at war with his own people.”45 Not exactly. Most Arab nations support bin Laden, if not openly then secretly, and America has yet to see major Muslim imams condemning both the 9/11 attacks and suicide bombings in Israel. Islam isn’t exactly non-violent.
THE WAR ON THE WAR ON TERROR
Nine days after the September 11 attacks, President Bush addressed Congress. “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,” Bush declared. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”46 So began our War on Terror. America defeated the Taliban rapidly, built the Office of Homeland Security, shut down funding for terrorist groups, and looked to Iraq as a source of terror.
And the professors had a hissy fit.
The War on Terror is a nightmare, according to the universities. Fighting back is a sin. It will contribute to a “cycle of violence.” Besides, if we kill our enemies, how are we any different than they are?
Soon intellectuals banded together to form the “Not In Our Name” group, opposing the war. They released a “Statement of Conscience,” printed in the New York Times, which calls “the people of the US to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world.” The petition calls “all Americans to RESIST the war and repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate.” It compares the events of September 11 to American bombing of Baghdad during the Gulf War and events of the Vietnam War; it lauds Israeli soldiers refusing to monitor the West Bank and Gaza, as well as Vietnam Draft evaders. “What kind of world will this become if the US government has a blank check to drop commandos, assassins, and bombs wherever it wants?” the statement asks. The statement also pledges solidarity with those hurt by current US policies— the terrorists.
The revolting “Statement of Conscience” is signed by many professors: Professor Joel Beinin of Stanford University, Professor Paul Chevigny of New York University, Professor Noam Chomsky, Professor David Cole of Georgetown University, Professor Kimberly Crenshaw of Columbia University and UCLA, Professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz of Cal State University at Hayward, Professor Leo Estrada of UCLA, Professor Sondra Hale of UCLA, Professor Christine Harrington of New York University, Professor David Harvey of CUNY, Professor Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth, Professor Fredric Jameson of Duke University, Professor Jesse Lemisch of CUNY, Professor Richard Lewontin of Harvard University, Professor Rosalind Pecheskey of Hunter College, Professor Peter Rachleff of Macalaster College, Professor Saskia Sassen of the University of Chicago, Professor Edward Said, Professor Juliet Schor of Boston College, Professor Ron Takaki of University of California at Berkeley, Professor Michael Taussig of Columbia University, Professor Immanuel Wallerstein of Yale University, and Professor Howard Zinn.47 They must have been flattered to sign the document next to the likes of intellectual giants Mos Def, Eve Ensler, Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, and Oliver Stone.
Those are just a few of the professors who believe the War on Terror is misguided. A Cal State University-Chico professor, apparently unrelated to Cynthia McKinney, stated that President Bush sought to “kill innocent people,” “colonize” the Arab world, and grab “oil for the Bush family.”48 That’s a lot of work for one war.
“I believe there is a fear that we will lose our moral compass,” explained Monsignor Stuart Swetland, head of the Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, during a panel discussion about September 11. “It has never been accepted as a just case to pursue a war for the sake of vengeance alone.” Swetland called on the United States to “break the cycle of violence.”49
The war is “morally, legally, and strategically unsound,” agrees Professor Anne McClintock of the University of Wisconsin. “If the deaths in Afghanistan should be described as collateral damage,” Professor Anne McClintock of the University of Wisconsin said, “then we should see those who died on Sept. 11 as collateral damage as well.”50 Not exactly. Civilians killed in Afghanistan are killed accidentally. Civilians killed on 9/11 were killed purposefully. But it’s just like the professors to equate the two.
“Certainly Bush made some of the right noises after Sept. 11 by saying that this was not a war against Muslims,” said Professor Michael Herb of Georgia State University. “But since then, by proposing to attack Iraq and by ignoring the Arab-Israeli conflict, he’s created a polarization that is quite stark. I don’t think most Americans realize that much of the rest of the world sympathizes with the Arabs rather than the US.”51 So because much of the world loves the Arabs, we should abandon our moral position?
It will lead to the ever-cited cycle of violence, professors say. “Our misguided ‘war on terror’ has made the US more vulnerable to future attacks,” predicts Professor Behrooz Ghamari of GSU.52 Professor Dane Archer of the UC Santa Cruz cautioned against “buying into the spiral of retaliation.”53 “Revenge is almost surely going to increase the probability of terrorist attacks happening again,” said Tom Pettigrew of UC Santa Cruz.54 Notice the use of moral equivalence here. If we target terrorists, they might get mad and retaliate—by killing civilians. Does that make September 11 a retaliatory attack as well?
Any confrontational political language is immediately attacked by the professors. The best example of this is the opposition to President Bush’s “axis of evil” declaration, in which he stated that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were all members of an axis of evil.
Bush’s “axis of evil” phrase was “rhetorically a step in
the wrong direction, and gave tremendous support to the opposition,” Professor Michael Intriligator of UCLA spouted.55 “The implication of this language is a sort of insight and ultimate judgment that most Christians are a little uncomfortable with,” says Professor James Dunn of Wake Forest University in North Carolina. “When that sort of ultimate certainty comes along, you have the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Puritan hangings.”56 Look out—if we draw a clear moral line in the sand, all of a sudden we might be burning witches at the stake!
“The reward that Iran got for helping out was to be labeled a part of Bush’s axis of evil,” whimpered Professor Jalil Roshandel of UCLA, an Iranian.57 Iran helping the United States? Where do they get this stuff?
Then there are the professors with a Vietnam hangover. In their eyes, every conflict America enters will become a “quagmire.” “[The terrorists] want to suck Americans into another quagmire,” declared UC Santa Cruz Professor Paul Lubeck about Afghanistan, a country America brought to its knees in a mere three weeks.58 At UCLA, Professor Deborah Larson discussed how the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution from the Vietnam War might compare to President George W. Bush’s current actions in the war on terrorism.59 At Brown University, Professor James Blight teaches a course entitled “The Vietnam War and the War on Terrorism.”60
Professor Michael Intriligator of UCLA said that the War on Terror would surely wreck the United States. “I don’t think Osama bin Laden was capable of doing it. I think it was a part of a larger plot—getting us in a war with Afghanistan is a great way to destabilize the country. It’s a big mistake. They’ve got the wrong guy.”61 It’s Intriligator who made the big mistake— bin Laden did it, and America wiped the Taliban off the map.
Finally, there are those who hate Bush and will use any excuse to rip him. “The [Bush] administration is in disarray, on both foreign and domestic policy,” states Professor Dan Franklin of Georgia State University. “[I]f September 11 hadn’t happened, he’d be in a real crisis of power right now.”62
Fellow University of Georgia Professor Loch Johnson is angry that Bush is keeping information under wraps, as any good president would do. “We as taxpayers and citizens have a right to know the details,” he said. “There’s been far too much going on behind closed doors. I’ve never seen such a secretive administration.”63 Perhaps he forgets the Clinton administration, which handed military secrets to the Chinese, sold presidential pardons to the highest bidder, and gave terrorists free passes, among others.
“I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House,” states Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University.64 I’m not sure which is more frightening: Foner’s idiocy, or the fact that he actually teaches students.
THE PHANTOM BACKLASH
More prevalent than mourning for the victims of September 11 was an immediate outcry from the intellectuals to protect Arab Americans from attacks by the unwashed masses of American racists.
“We have to all stand up and say we are all Arab Americans. We cannot stand for this. The fanatics are a minority. Unless we start from that premise and stand together as a society, we’re not going to go very far,” urged Professor Edmund Burke of UC Santa Cruz.65 “Whenever there’s a war or conflict, there’s a tendency to turn upon ‘the other,’” warned Professor Daryl Thomas of Binghamton University.66
The backlash against Muslim Americans never materialized. As syndicated columnist Ann Coulter puts it, “The only backlash by actual Americans . . . consists of precisely one confirmed hate crime. Some nut in Arizona murdered a Sikh thinking he was a Muslim. Current hate crime tally: Muslims: 3,000 (and counting); White Guys: 1.”67
But the professors wouldn’t let go of the “Arabs as victims” idea. They manufactured widespread terror among Arab Americans out of thin air, as though there were brigades of renegade white men running about the countryside murdering Muslims.
“Trust is gone,” weeps Professor Karen Jehn of the University of Pennsylvania. “People are looking at their [Arab or Muslim] colleagues and saying: ‘We could be best friends, and you could be involved in some way.’”68
“[R]ecognize from the standpoint of American Muslims and Sikhs, how they themselves have felt suddenly afraid in what is by now their own country, the attack on mosques within hours of the tragedy here in New York and in Washington,” mourns Professor Diana Eck of Harvard University. “We begin to see Muslim parents taking their kids home from school and Muslim schools like the New Horizon School in Los Angeles closing. Sikhs begin to be mistaken for Muslims, a Sikh gentleman hauled off a train in Providence because he looked a bit like Osama bin Laden.”69
Arab-American Professor Ibrahim Syed of Bellarmine College in Kentucky feels insecure about his safety. “There is fear because we are singled out (as Muslims),” Syed says. “Anything can happen at anytime.” He shouldn’t feel too unsafe; there was only one documented hate crime against Arab Americans in the entire state of Kentucky from September 11, 2001 until September 11, 2002.70
THE ATTACK ON PATRIOTISM
On campus, anyone who dares to love America is criticized as a flag-waver: a patriotic racist buffoon who believes in American imperialism. Patriotism is seen as a hallmark of stupidity.
At Florida Gulf Coast University, staff members put stickers on their desks reading “Proud to be an American,” in honor of the September 11 victims. Their supervisor ordered them to take down the stickers at the risk of being fired, because the stickers could offend international students. After intense media scrutiny, the president of the university rescinded the order and disciplined the supervisor.71
The University of California at Berkeley wanted to hold their one-year anniversary memorial for the September 11 attacks without God, flags, or patriotism. They were going to omit the “Star-Spangled Banner,” “God Bless America,” and red, white, and blue ribbons, in order not to offend foreign students. The president of the Berkeley Graduate Assembly and an admitted hater of the American flag and the US government, Jessica Quindel, evaluated the planned ceremony: “We are trying to stay away from supporting Bush. We don’t want to isolate people on this campus who disagree with the reaction to Sept. 11. . . . The flag has become a symbol of US aggression towards other countries. It seems hostile.”72 Berkeley later decided to allow students to pass out red, white, and blue ribbons after national outrage at the original ceremony plan.
Professor Cecilia Elizabeth O’Leary doesn’t attack patriotism head-on; rather, she attacks what she calls “conservative” patriotism. “Patriotism can be mistaken for conformity,” she avers. “Today, a conservative patriotism led by those who display indiscriminate, biased, racial criteria has come to dominate.” O’Leary mentions people like Attorney General John Ashcroft as practitioners of this “racist” patriotism.73
Professors Frank Lentricchia and Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University are composing an essay collection disparaging patriotism as simplistic. “We’ve had wall-to-wall, unreflective patriotism in this country—we’re trying to crack through it,” proudly states Lentricchia. In the collection, Hauerwas writes: “Do I forsake all forms of patriotism, failing to acknowledge that we as a people are better off because of the sacrifices that were made in World War II? To this I can only answer, ‘Yes.’”74
Professor Vijay Prashad of Trinity College in Connecticut derides patriotism as “jingoism,” a simplistic and superficial support for the United States. “It is as if the acts of terror from the 11th of September must be washed away or else exorcised with an excessive display of nationalistic jingoism,” he sneers.75 Professor Todd Eisenstadt of the University of New Hampshire went further, comparing nationalistic Americans with the September 11 suicide bombers. “A certain jingoism accompanies excessive devotion to any cause, inducing suicide hijackers to pilot commercial jets into our nation’s very foundations,” he wrote. “And blind patriotism surely fits that description.”76
“Patriotism can b
e very exclusionary,” cautions Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University. “There is a sense that you have to rally around the flag.”77 Oh, no, anything but that!
IN TATTERS
“[T]he United States claims it has its reasons [for the War on Terror],” states America-hating Professor Noam Chomsky. “And the Nazis had reasons for gassing the Jews.”78 Many professors agree—the modern-day United States and President George Bush are identical to World War II Germany and Hitler. So we deserved what we got on September 11. And the men and women vaporized in airplanes, or pulverized into the ground after jumping from flaming skyscrapers, or plummeting thousands of feet into an empty field in Pennsylvania got what was coming to them.
Those who don’t believe America had it coming still believe that America’s foreign policy was to blame for the attacks. “The ultimate responsibility [for the attacks] lies with the rulers of this country, the capitalist ruling class of this country,” says Professor Walter Daum of City College of New York.79 If we would only capitulate to the desires of the Arab street, they would love us. Let Israel be overrun by its Arab enemies. Tell India to let the Pakistanis walk into New Delhi. Back the Chechens against the Russians. Then they won’t ever attack us, they say.
The professors blame American foreign policy, but never Islam, which has only been perverted by extremists. And all religions have extremists, right?
When America finally does respond in a rational, justified way, the professors condemn that. For example, 166 intellectuals, including 66 Berkeley professors, signed a New York Times ad that rebuked President Bush for the War on Terror, which they called “unacceptable.”80 It’s brutal, shocking, and obscene, they cry. If we attack the terrorists, are we no more than terrorists ourselves?
It’s no shock that the professors think Americans are terrorists; they already think we are racists. They consistently hearken back to non-existent hate crimes against Arab Americans that other Americans supposedly executed. The race card has always been a favorite tactic of the professors, and it was played to the hilt with regard to September 11.